The world is not in peace everywhere, unfortunately. There is a huge population living in fear, whose ordinary lives are affected by terror. Literature suggests living in terror leads to different relationships with the place (e.g. Billig, 2006) and to psychological distress, which further leads to changes in attitudes and beliefs (Echebarria-Echabe & Fernández-Guede, 2006), as well as behaviors (e.g. Schiff, 2006; Schiff, Benbenishty, McKay, DeVoe, Liu, & Hasin, 2006). This study looks at regions in Pakistan where people live in constant terror of terrorism, political unrest, and threats of death, and aim to understand how people cope with the extreme situations, how their attachment to the place evolves and changes, and how people’s perceptions and ideologies on consumption shift.

Increasing consumer scepticism about corporate behaviour has led companies to actively manage and advertise their corporate brands. However, it remains unclear how receptive consumers across different markets have been to such efforts. This study examines (i) consumer involvement (a motivational state activated by personal relevance of a stimuli) levels and (ii) processes with corporate advertising to demonstrate differences and similarities with product advertising across multiple markets. Using between subject experimental design, the study was conducted across three different markets with varying degrees of economic development i.e. USA (n = 285), France (n = 217) and Pakistan (n=311). Results demonstrate that consumer involvement levels with corporate advertising is higher in USA than in France and Pakistan. American consumers tend to be involved with corporate advertising as much as they are with product advertising, whereas, French and Pakistani consumers are more involved with product advertising. Apart from differences in involvement levels, study findings demonstrate substantial similarities in involvement processing and how they impact ad attitude and consumers’ behaviour across both the markets. The study holds importance for corporate communication and product managers with cross national responsibilities as it establishes differences and similarities for corporate and product ad involvement across developed and emerging markets.